“Like a lot of people, I got involved as soon as my daughter was born [in 2005]. You become aware of all the toxic chemicals that are in our midst, in toys, in bedding, all kinds of things. And at a certain point I got tired of trolling through the Internet, trying to figure out what products were safe and what wasn’t safe.”

Beals, who is appearing with the group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, is known for her work on Showtime’s “The L Word” and the 1980s movie “Flashdance,” says that the chemical industry would argue that tighter regulations “would impede their economic growth, but I would say that with all of the brain power that is within the chemical industry … I would ask them to use that intelligence and that acumen to create safer chemicals and it doesn’t have to impede their profit margin.”